Experts: Media May Be Second Prison for Cleveland Abductees

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Three women kept captive in a boarded-up Cleveland house for
between nine and 11 years will likely face a long road to
recovery after their nightmarish ordeal.

The women,
Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, all went
missing between 2002 and 2004, when they were teens, or in
Knight's case, 20 years old. The women managed to escape on
Monday (May 6). Police told reporters this week that they had
found chains and ropes in the house, and that the women were very
rarely allowed outside into the backyard. Berry's 6-year-old
daughter also escaped from the house.

Former school bus driver Ariel Castro has been charged with
kidnapping and rape in the case.

The women's families
told CNN that they were in good spirits upon being reunited
with their families, but social scientists warn that the trauma
of captivity is not likely to fade overnight — especially as they
will have to recover in the public eye, under media pressure.
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"The big challenge that they face is the anticipation that
everything is going to be perfect once family members are back
together again," said Geoffrey Greif, a professor of social work
at the University of Maryland who has studied missing
and exploited children.

Recovering from trauma

In fact, Greif said, the women's families have changed in the
decades they have been gone. Berry's mother, Louwana Miller, died
in 2006 without ever finding out what had happened to her
daughter.

"The family grows, changes in one direction," Greif told
LiveScience. "The women change in a different direction, and the
issue is to accept the fact that their life trajectories have
been very different."

At the same time, the abducted women are likely to suffer with
the aftereffects of trauma, said pediatric and adolescent
psychologist Carolyn Landis of University Hospitals Rainbow
Babies & Children's Hospital in Cleveland. This could include
post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

"I think of it as somebody who has been through a war," Landis
told LiveScience. Symptoms of PTSD could include re-experiencing
the trauma, anxiety, nightmares, insomnia and even physical
ailments.

Coping in the aftermath

Therapy and possibly medications could help ease PTSD symptoms,
Landis said. It's also important that the women face their
recoveries individually. The three might face different struggles
and different paths despite sharing similar traumas.

Abduction victims often feel guilt and shame, questioning
themselves about whether they did enough to escape, Greif said.
They might also compare themselves with individuals from other
high-profile cases.

"From talking to other people who have been kidnapped and
recovered, they sometimes measure themselves against the
perception of how high-profile former abducted people do," Greif
said. "It can set a bar that may have worked for Elizabeth
Smart and Jaycee Dugard, but may not work for someone else."

Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped at age 14 from her bedroom in Salt
Lake City, Utah, and held for nine months.
Jaycee Lee Dugard was abducted at age 11 in South Lake Tahoe,
Calif., and was kept in captivity for 18 years.

Like Berry, Dugard had children in captivity. Berry's child may
need psychological help as well, Landis said.

"I would expect that it probably wasn't a wonderful atmosphere,
so I'm sure she might have heard or seen things that would not be
typical for your normal child," she said. "I would expect she
might have symptoms of PTSD as well."

The women's sudden celebrity may also complicate their recovery,
Landis said. Dugard's memoir, "A Stolen Life" (Simon &
Schuster, 2011) discusses not being able to go out with her
daughters in public, lest they be recognized.

"I hope that people will give them their space and their privacy
so they can live normal lives, because if not it's almost like
they're still in a prison," Landis said.